Life Unexpected
by raidensokwl
Summary: Living in a world were super-powered heroes and villains are real, the intolerant hate for an entire race of people is prevalent can make one wish that their life is nothing more than normal. Unfortunately, life has a habit of throwing unexpected situations at all of us, situations that would soon see us in worlds that we would rather not be a part of. OC Main character.


**Well, here's the Marvel story I said I had been writing. Certainly something new for me. Having to come up with a character from scratch, think I did him justice. I do apologise in advance for the rather slow beginning, it sort of happened. I had to cut it down from the thousands of words that my draft version had to this. **

**Well, I hope you enjoy. **

**Disclaimer: I don't own any following Marvel Comics characters in the following story, although I do own the main character...not that I have the means or know how of how to find or track anyone done who uses him without my use or anything like that. Ha, so is my life.**

* * *

><p><span>Normal Is Overrated<span>

Friday.

Thank God.

If anybody was asked what their favourite day of the week was, Friday would be the first word out of people's lips. The day signified the end of the week, the day that heralded the weekend, the two days someone would be allowed to sleep in and not have someone get onto their case.

For Ryan, Friday couldn't have come soon enough. It meant that another school week was nearing its end, and for the next two days, he could be as lazy as he wanted until he had to get back to the same old routine once more.

Sometimes, he couldn't help but dread the fact that this was going to be his life until old age hit. It was just depressing, for the next forty or so years plus, he was to wake up early in the morning, probably each day, and then trod off to whatever soul crushing employment he had managed to get himself into.

Sometimes, it was just too depressing to even think about, let alone make him crawl out of the very comfy bed he was currently inhabiting that seemed to make everything better and wash away whatever worries he had.

Alas, he had to get up, he had already missed two days of school this week (boohoo, what a loss that was), his dad might have been accommodating with his laziness and lack of ambition in life, but their was always a limit, and that limit was missing three days of state sanctioned education.

With a heavy sigh, Ryan unwillingly pulled himself out of his covers. He didn't have to walk for long to reach the bathroom, all he had to do was take several steps down the hallway and then turn a right and here he was.

Hot water was already sprinkling down from the shower and steam it produced was already beginning to fog up the mirror that he was staring into. He didn't really know why he did it, maybe it was a subconscious habit that he had developed somewhere back in his youth or something else entirely, he wiped away the fog over the window to get a clear view of his face as he brushed his teeth.

With three large swipes, the fog was cleared away to reveal a wet mirror that spotted multitudes of water droplets that didn't put at all effect the mirror's ability to reflect his appearance. To anyone who looked he was exotic looking, his skin was that kind of tone many would die for, olive in colour and seemingly gave him the look of one who had a perfect tan, neither too light, nor too dark, nearly hiding behind half lidded eyes were amber coloured eyes and sitting on his head was a messy mop of blackish-brown hair that was in need of a cut sooner rather than later and spotting two simple, silver studs on his right ear. His topless torso revealed a moderately athletic build that was neither too muscular or too thin.

With one final brush, Ryan spit the contents of his mouth into the sink before rinsing his mouth with water. Placing his toothbrush back into its proper place, Ryan made way into the shower. The moment the soothing hot water hit his body, he could have let out a moan of pleasure as the water rushed over his body, soothing whatever aches he hadn't noticed that he had.

He could honestly say that he would and could have stayed in that shower until he was shrivelled up like a prune, that's how good it was. But like all good things, it had to come to an end and Ryan had places to be and things to do today and thus the option of staying in the shower wasn't one that he could take.

It had taken a little over twenty minutes for Ryan to finish his morning rituals and the digital clock in the kitchen read that it was 07:56 with the seconds counting down with the passage of time. It meant that Jack had a little over fifteen minutes to eat his breakfast and had for the bus stop to be in time for the school bus or he would have to take the public bus into town.

Not having enough time to set up anything elaborate breakfast wise, he settled for toast with a spread of strawberry jam. The bread was already in the toaster and he all needed was the jam.

**BZZT!**

"Ow," Ryan's hand recoiled away from the handle of the fridge as he felt an electric shock, bringing a finger to his mouth to suck on it in a bid to dull the pain. That was the plan until he noticed something strange, "What the-?" It didn't hurt. That was weird, wasn't it supposed to hurt being electrocuted? Maybe it was just his imagination.

Shrugging at the random hallucination or feeling his mind had played on him, Ryan reached for the fridge once more, although this time more wary of a repeat shock, but his fears proved to be unfounded as he was able to handle the cooling device with no incident this time, allowing him to retrieve the spread that he wanted and proceed to make his breakfast.

His quick breakfast had proven to be rather quick, quick to the point that he stood in the hallway placing on his black trainers that went with his school uniform of a black blazer, white shirt and black slacks that drifted down past his ankles with the entire ensemble finished off by a dark blue and white striped tie and a black backpack slung over his shoulders.

Another trio of knocks garnered his attention once more as he struggled with his shoes, "I'm coming!" He called out as he was finally able to place his foot into the soles of his shoes before making his way towards door, grabbing his keys from the counter as he did so. He opened the door to face a teenager who was just a couple of inches shorter than him with short, dark brown hair cut into an 'essex' style and grey eyes and dressed in the same uniform as his, "Can't you wait for minute Tom?"

Tom gave a megawatt grin right to Ryan's face, "Well good morning to you too."

Ryan rolled his eyes as he exited his house, "Why are you smiling? Actually, why are you smiling so brightly? It's like eight in the morning. No-one smiles that brightly this early." He grumbled as he turned around to lock the door behind him.

He didn't really know how or why, but Tom was probably his best friend. They had known each other since they were kids, they weren't to the same primary school, the first school in the UK he had attended after moving in from abroad and since then, they had stuck around with each other.

Ryan could compare them to two opposite sides of the same coin. While Ryan knew how to have a good time, he would gladly identify himself as someone who always saw the bad in every situation, whilst Tom would see the opposite, he was quite sure that he only did so to get on his nerves or take the mickey out of him.

"We can't all be miserly bastards like you Ryan." Tom mused as he leaned on the opposite wall beside him, waiting for Ryan. He was then to notice something, or to be more precise something that Ryan was missing from his persons, "Mate, where's your kit?"

Ryan had just pocketed his keys after locking the door and had turned to begin the walk towards the bus stop before stopping to look at Tom with a puzzled expression, "What?" He let out dumbfounded, "My kit?" He repeated.

Tom slowly nodded his head, "Yeah, your kit. You know, the stuff that you're supposed to have for this afternoon's game. Some people put it into gym bags or something like that. Something like this." He finished off as he turned his back slightly and indicated at the second bag that was on his back, slung over his shoulder.

"Urgh," Ryan groaned as he fished his keys from inside his pockets and turned towards the door, "Why are you such a snarky bastard?"

"Why are you such a forgetful bastard?" Tom fired back with equal vigour. Insulting each other was common place with their friendship, it could always be guaranteed that a conversation between either of them could always result in some form of insult being thrown.

Having gone back inside his home to retrieve his kit, Ryan joined Tom outside and began to make their way towards the bus stop. Although before he had even left his driveway he had stopped to note something, "Well that's strange."

Tom stopped and turned back to look at him with a raised eyebrow of curiosity, "What's strange?" He asked, "You know, if you forgot something again, we're going to end up missing the bus at this rate."

Ryan shook his head as he cast a quick look in Tom's direction, "Not that. I meant that's strange." He said as he pointed beside him at the car that was parked in the drive away.

Tom looked at the car, one part of his brain trying to figure out what was so strange about the car, the other part of his brain feeling all kinds of envy at seeing the Porsche convertible right in front of him, why was his best friend loaded like this? It wasn't fair, "Yeah, I'm not seeing it."

"My dad should be at work." Ryan shared as he walked past the car, "Well by now any way he should have gone off to work. Try to remember any single time you've come to pick me up and the car has been parked in the drive way. Come on, try." He finished off as he and Tom began to walk off in the direction of the main road.

His dark haired friend's face scrunched up in thought as he rose to the challenge and tried to think of a time he had seen the car parked in the driveway every morning that he had come to pick up his friend. After a while, he eventually gave up, "Yeah, I've got nothing."

"Exactly." Ryan replied with a frown on his face as he adjusted the second bag on his back, "He always leaves earlier than me."

"Maybe he has a day off? People do have that you know."

Ryan couldn't help but snort in amusement at the thought, "My dad? The workaholic? Day off? You must be crazy."

Tom shrugged nonchalantly, "Well, that's the only thing that can come to mind. Either that or he's sick." He cast a look in Ryan's direction as they continued to walk down the road, "...Your dad does take sick days right?"

"...I honestly don't know. I've never seen him sick."

"Wow, you're just an awful son aren't you? Can't even notice when your old man's feeling under the weather."

"Shut up."

"You're such a pleb sometimes mate."

"What does pleb even mean?"

XxX

"Ryan, stay out wide! You're there for a reason!"

Ryan held back a frown as he stopped himself drifting from his outside position into the middle of the park. At the coach's order, he started going back to his position, all the while keeping eyes on the ball as it was knocked around the park several yards out from his own penalty box.

He didn't even have to look around to know that one of the centre-backs had drifted out wide with him to make he sure that he at least had a man marking him. He snorted when he saw that he had fallen into exactly what the coach wanted, a wide gap had been opened in the middle between the two centre-backs.

'Well, at least the old man knows what he doing.' Ryan thought to himself as he came to a halt just a few yards away from the touchline. For the next few minutes, he was playing an anxious spectator as he watched his teammates come under heavy pressure from the opposing team.

It was late in the game and whoever scored next was more than likely going to be the winner. Ryan was quite sure that they were already nearing the end of stoppage time as it was. It looked like the game was going to end a simple bore draw of 1-1. Nobody liked a score like that, even though it was marginally better than a score of 0-0.

Well, he didn't like that score. Ryan always played to win, he had something of a competitive streak inside him. A quirk of his that went against his usual easy-going personality.

"Ryan!"

At having his name yelled out, Ryan's attention snapped back to planet Earth. He immediately noticed that Tom had managed to somehow get the ball to his feet and was looking directly at him, or more accurately the space behind him.

He didn't need to be told twice, in fact, he didn't need to be even told.

Turning on his heel, Ryan darted forth from his position towards the opposition half. His marker was caught flat footed as they had tried to retreat and keep the space between them by back peddling.

Bypassing him quickly, Ryan turned his head to look over his shoulder and managed to see the glimpse of the ball sailing through the air. He turned his body ever so slightly so that he ran in bending diagonal right into the inside of the pitch to match with the pass that had been sent in his direction.

He then noticed something about the pass. It had too much weight behind it and would more than likely result in a race between him and the keeper to see who got to it first, but taking into account that the forward momentum of the ball would make it more than likely the keeper would be the first to reach it, 'Dammit Tom, who do you think I am, Quicksilver?' He shouted as loud as he could in his mind in the vain hope that Tom was able to pick up his cursing of him.

He could already see the keeper beginning to rush out of his net to try and sweep up the ball, most likely by booting it back into their half in the hope that someone got to the end of it and score and bring this game to a close. Not wanting that to happen, Ryan picked up the pace and pumped his arms and legs as hard and as fast as he could. He could feel his muscles straining and crying out to him for him to let them rest, he had been active for more than ninety minutes, they needed their rest.

Ryan aptly ignored them as he pumped even harder. He could feel his heart beating loudly in his chest to pump his limbs with the needed blood and oxygen and he swore he could hear the rush of his blood as it travelled through his ears, maybe even his entire body.

'Come on, just a little closer. You can go faster than this.' Apparently, his self-cheering managed to work as he was able to gain a second wind and was just able to reach the ball, which had managed to make its way into the box, before the keeper, poke it past him as the keeper had dropped low in a bid to smother the ball into his chest. Unable to change his direction, Ryan tried to avoid the keeper but was still caught by him.

***PIIIIII***

The sound of a whistle immediately rang out. Slowly getting himself of the floor, Ryan was able to spot the referee make his way towards the box whilst pointing at the penalty spot, "Penalty!" A round of cheers went through the pitch from the players and the spectators at that announcement from the referee. Even the other team couldn't do anything about it and the keeper looked downtrodden as he got up and waited for the verdict he knew that was coming.

The referee didn't disappoint as he brought out a red card from his pocket and now having the confirmation he needed, he made his way of the pitch, all the while receiving pats on the back from passing players, both from his team and Ryan's along with the solemn words of 'Unlucky mate' or the more frequent, 'Good game'.

He had been having a good game that was for sure. The amount of certain goals that he had saved had become infuriating.

A hand appeared in front of Ryan and he took it, "Nice one." Tom said as he helped him up before giving him a congratulatory pat on the back, "We might as well have one this one." All three subs had been made and they didn't look like they had a back-up keeper and they now had to convert one of the outfield players into a keeper for the penalty and for the rest of the game.

Yeah...they had won this game. In good time too.

"I know." Ryan said as he dusted himself off and made his way towards the edge of the penalty box, "But really, that pass, what the hell man? How fast do you think I am?"

His teammate and friend just have him a nonchalant shrug of the shoulders, "You still got it didn't you?"

"_Barely_!" Ryan nearly hissed out his response, "I could have been injured!"

They stopped at the edge of the penalty box. Tom panned his eyes in his direction and gave him a once over, "Yeah, but you're not." He more or less deadpanned, "So everything's good."

"Urgh, sometimes, I really feel the need to throttle you."

"Shh, Maxie is taking the penalty now." Tom said as he changed the subject, pointing in front of them, "Eyes front now. Gotta be ready for a rebound or anything like that."

"This isn't over." Ryan said as he faced the direction of the goal, setting himself up for a run-up into the box if by the smallest of chance the penalty was saved and rebounded back into the area.

The penalty taker, the team captain, a boy who looked like he looked more at home on a rugby pitch than a football pitch called Maxie took a couple of small steps back for his run-up. He waited a few moments for the referee to blow his whistle and when he did, he stepped up confidently and dispatched the ball into the top right corner.

The stand-in keeper didn't have a chance.

It was as if Maxie had just gone and scored the winning goal to the cup final if the dog pile that followed was any indication. They eventually had to break it up to continue the match afterwards.

At the restart of the match, the other team had taken a policy of throwing bodies forward in a bid to score. The ball had only been touched four times before the referee blew the whistle to bring the match to a halt.

XxX

"For only the second game of the season that was pretty intense." Tom idly commented as he, Ryan and a couple of other people from the school team made their way towards the bus stop, "It was almost as if we were playing in a cup final or something." He wringed out his leg, "Urgh, I can still feel the tackle from that one guy."

"Didn't you get him back for that?" One of the others asked with a small smile of amusement on his face, "I saw you kept eyeing the guy throughout the whole match. Whenever he got the ball and he was near your side of the field, you were like Rottweiler mate, unrelenting."

"The gaffer wasn't exactly happy about that," Another said before bringing up a free hand and closing the space between the index finger and the thumb, "You were this close to getting yourself subbed."

Tom sighed as he uncapped a high-energy drink, "Tell me about it." He elbowed Ryan in the arm as he walked alongside him, "If it wasn't for this guy right here, I'd be sitting on the bench and one of your losers would have my place on the pitch." He finished off light heartedly as he brought the drink up to his lips, "Thanks for that by the way."

Ryan shrugged his shoulders, "Don't thank me. It was either that, or I'd have to deal with your whining all the way back home." He shook his head as he returned his attention to the phone in his hand, scrolling through news feeds, "I swear, with the amount of whining you do, I'm surprised that you aren't a pig." A round of laughs went through the group of boys.

Tom nearly choked on his drink but managed to control himself. He brought the bottle down from his lips and glared in Ryan's direction, "Ryan?"

"Yeah?"

"You're a bastard."

"So you tell me."

"You out tonight?"

"Of course."

"Good to know." And with that interchange over and done with, Tom brought the drink back to his lips and returned to happily chugging it down to quench his thirst and give his tired and worn body some energy. Actually on that matter, there was something off about Ryan, "Dude, aren't you, I don't know, tired or anything?" He asked as he looked at his buddy with slightly squinted eyes.

"Actually, I don't know why, but I'm fine." Ryan answered as he looked up away from his phone, "I was dead tired for a few minutes after the match, but now, I'm as right as rain." He finished off with a shrug before returning to his phone, "What can I say? Apparently, I'm a freaking juggernaut."

That last comment by Ryan somehow started off a chain conversation that had absolutely nothing to do with Ryan's own physical prowess, "Isn't there a guy called Juggernaut? I'm pretty sure there is a guy called Juggernaut."

"There is indeed a guy called Juggernaut. I think he's a mutant."

"He isn't a mutant."

"How do you know he's _not _a mutant? He fights the X-Men doesn't he? A lot of people with powers the X-Men fight are mutants."

"Yeah but some aren't and he isn't one. I know."

"How do you know?"

"The internet."

Several laughs could be heard throughout the group, "Don't consult the internet about this sort of stuff. That's like asking the internet for medical advice."

"You guys are strange." Ryan muttered with a shake of the head, "Who argues about this sort of stuff anyway? It doesn't have anything to do with us." He didn't really understand why they were having the conversation anyway. It wasn't like any single one of them was going to find themselves face to face with Juggernaut himself one day, actually, he would bet good money that at best, they would never meet the guy.

"I don't know man, life's unpredictable." Tom said with an easy grin on his face, "You might never know. Something cool would happen and you might end up meeting the guy."

"Yes, because meeting a well known bad guy is one of my life's top priorities right now." The dark-haired footballer remarked, sarcasm laced in his tone, "Get a grip mate. I don't think I ever want to be in that kind of situation any time soon or in my entire life." He was honestly kind of glad he didn't live in London where most of the things that involved super-powers of some kind happened...or America, it seemed like a lot of stuff that could put one's life in jeopardy happened in that country.

Maybe it was something in the water?

"You know saying that is sort of liking asking for it to happen right?" Tom pointed out as he gave a sly look in Ryan's direction, "You're so jinxing yourself mate." The others with them agreeing with him vocally or with their actions.

Ryan laughed as he shook his head in the negative, "It's not like I'm going to wake-up tomorrow with powers," He stopped in his tracks, bringing the others to a halt as they looked at him strangely. Ryan looked up from his phone with a blank look on his face, "Because that would suck." The thought frightened him. It would mean so many things.

Tom didn't understand as he looked at him, "Why would it suck?"

Ryan sighed as he started walking again, making the others resume walking themselves, "Because it would mean I'm probably a mutant, and that my friends, does suck. It might as well be a death sentence." There were a lot of things in the world that sucked, being a mutant was one of the things that sucked the most. In terms of social status, you were ranked far worse than a leper...actually, lepers were treated better than a mutant, much better than back in the days when lepers were given their own lands to live by themselves and that was saying something.

Being a mutant meant not being a human. Well, in the eyes of other 'normal' humans, you were a freak, and to the more extreme ones, something to be hated and killed for the good of the human gene pool.

"Well that's true," One of the others said with a nod of agreement, "But really, you have to admit, having some kind of super power would be cool. It would at least make every day life interesting in one way or another."

Tom had an easy smile on his face as he agreed with that thought, "Yeah, life would be way more interesting."

"Eh, it's just too much trying to argue with you guys." Ryan said with a defeated sigh escaping his lips, "You're just too much trouble."

For that admission, Ryan was at the end of several hearty pats on the back, courtesy of Tom himself. His best friend was then quick to note something that his friend had been having his eyes on his phone the entire time throughout their little journey, "So who's the girl that's keeping all your time?" He asked as he gave a not so sly hint that he was indicating towards his phone.

Ryan rolled his eyes, "Don't be immature. I figured I might as well see what's going on in the world. You know, reading the news, like any responsible young adult would."

Tom stuck out his tongue, "I've got at least three more years before I have to worry about reading the news. I'll be fine on my own at the moment, and anyway, I have you don't I?" He panned his head slightly to look at Ryan through the corner of his eye, "So what exactly is going in the world anyway?"

Ryan shrugged as he locked his phone and placed it inside his blazer pocket, "You know, this and that, the usual."

"And what is the usual?"

"The Tories and Labour taking pot shots at each other, the Lib De-."

"Urgh, I hate politics. Don't try to bore me with that stuff. At least tell me there's something interesting happened that's newsworthy."

Ryan hummed in thought as they finally came to a stop at a bus stop. He was still in thought as he leaned against the wall of the bus shelter, "Well, Jean Grey is dead."

Tom was lost, he didn't have a clue who that was, "Who's Jean Grey?"

"The red-head from the X-Men."

Apparently, that little description was all that was needed for the needed for the teenage boys in the area to immediately know who Jean Gray is, "The super-fit redhead? Marvel Girl?"

"Yeah, her." Ryan said as he nodded his head, "Apparently, she died in New York, some dude named Xorn." He continued with a shrug of the shoulders, "And that school, the school for mut-."

"Oh man, the world's just too cruel. She was _so _fit."

Ryan just stared at his friends as they just began to talk amongst themselves about the passing of Jean Grey and how they wouldn't be able to get the chance to ogle at her in the flesh just by chance sometime in their lives, "...Seriously?" Once again, it had to be reiterated, being a mutant was a social death wish. You weren't even considered human. Ryan could only shake his head, "You guys are unbelievable."

XxX

Well after one in the morning, Ryan entered his house with a slightly drunken stumble. Closing the door behind him, he struggled locking it as it took him a while to finally be able to place the key into the keyhole.

He had to catch himself several times as he walked through the hallway from the door, before haphazardly throwing his shoes of his feet to the side. He felt a heart-attack coming when one of his wayward shoes nearly knocked over the lantern that rested on a desk before letting out a sigh of massive relief as the lantern was able to stay in its upright position.

"Urgh, I think I drank too much." He muttered to himself as he headed for the stairs. He didn't know whether he was sober enough to risk going up two flights of stairs too reach his room or whether too just crash on the couch in the living room. At that last thought, he cringed, "Dad would just get on my case anyway." His dad was a stickler for modesty. He allowed him a lot of leeway's, but there were something's that were just too much for the man, waking up to seeing your son drunk son passed out on the couch were one of them.

Speaking of which, he hadn't seen his old man all day today. Even when he had come home to get himself cleaned up and ready for the party he had been invited too. And his car had still been in the driveway, in the exact same spot he had seen it in the morning.

That was just strange.

Whenever he parked the car whenever he came back from work or from going somewhere, Ryan could always tell if the car had been moved. It was just one of those things you picked up, even if something was off by a few centimetres or millimetres, he could always tell.

He could honestly say that he was rather worried right about now. Something was amiss, "Dad?" He called out, as he reached the first floor of the house, hoping that his voice wasn't as slurred as it seemed, "Dad you home?" He called out once more as he headed for the door at the far end of the first floor.

When he reached the door, he placed his hand on the door knob and softly turned it to open before pushing the door open as softly as he could, "Dad?" He called out into the room softly, "You in hear? If you are, give me something, a grumble, anything." He didn't really care if his old man shouted at him for waking him up so late at night.

Fully opening the door now, Ryan stepped into the room and made his way towards the large double-sized bed where he could see the lying figure of his father in the slightly illuminated dark. He came to a stop at his father's side and put a hand on him and shook, "Dad?"

XxX

Ryan had never ridden in the back of an ambulance before. Not once in his life. He had always felt it would be one of those novel things one could experience if they did. He for one had always wanted to ride in the back of an ambulance, seeing the emergency technicians rush about trying to keep their patient alive and stable for as long as possible until they reached a hospital.

Call it a morbid interest of his.

It was certainly an experience. One he didn't ever want to repeat. For one, he certainly knew he would never repeat the experience again, after all, he only had one father...well, he used to have one father.

For the entire twenty minute journey, his sunken eyes had always been on the covered up body of his father. He didn't cry, he felt like he should have, but he didn't. One of the technicians had tried to keep him busy, to do anything to stop staring at the body of his old man.

Whatever she tried, it didn't work. His eyes were always kept on the body of his old man. He didn't understand. His father was healthy. He ate right. He exercised. He wasn't the pinnacle of health or anything, but he was damn close. And he had only seen him the day before and he had looked as right as rain.

He didn't understand just how he could have just died within a night.

"Firuz Sterling?"

Ryan was abruptly broken out his thoughts as he lifted his head to look up to a woman, some dressed in a beige coloured pant-suit, in her hands were a bunch of files, "I go by Ryan, but yeah, that's me."

The woman gave him a smile. A smile he didn't like, it was one of those pitying smiles, "Lisa McHain, Social Services." She said as she brought up a hand to shake.

"Oh," Ryan could only let out as he robotically took the hand and shook it, "That was quick." He had been told that Social Services had been contacted sometime ago, but he didn't know they were this quick to find someone for him. Actually, now that he thought about, how long had he been here? "What time is it?"

"It's a little past three," Oh, that explained it then. He had been here for an hour, "Actually, closer to half past three actually." Corrected, for an hour and a half. That was quick enough to find someone."

Ryan nodded his head as he played with the polystyrene cup in his hands, passing it from one hand to the other, "So what happens now? To me that is."

Lisa took a seat beside him, "Well, you're going to have to be processed into the system, but first I have to ask a couple of questions if you don't mind."

"Fire away."

"You told the doctors here you didn't have any other family apart from your father?"

Ryan nodded his head, "I've been to both sets of my grandparents' funerals and my mom and dad were the only children in their families."

The social worker nodded her head, "What about a guardian? Godfather, someone like that."

Ryan thought about it for a split second before shaking his head, "Nothing. Not to my knowledge at least." He shrugged, "Sorry."

"It's alright," Lisa said, that smile still on her face. He didn't need that, "Well, that's it for now. I'll come back later to ask you more questions, but until then, I have to take you to a group home."

"Already found me a place? You guys work quick." Not one would have expected from a government agency.

The light-haired woman had something of a wry smile on her lips, "What can I say? We're always prepared for anything."

"...How did he die?"

"I-I'm sorry, what?"

"My dad," Ryan began, "How did he die? No-one has told me yet."

Lisa pursed her lips in thought before sighing, "The doctors don't know. The initial autopsy reveals that his cause of death was extreme exhaustion."

"Extreme exhaustion?" Ryan repeated with something of a flabbergasted tone, "What the hell is that?"

She shrugged, "That's what they told me. I heard one of them say it was like all the energy in his body had been sucked out of him." She shrugged again, "I'm sorry I can't tell you more. I'm sure they'll have more information at a later date."

Ryan just nodded his head before feeling a vibration in his pocket. Digging into his pocket, he pulled out his phone and saw that he was receiving a call from Tom. He frowned before clicking the ignore button, well that had been the thought before his phone short-circuited on him.

"Ow." He let out as he dropped his phone to the ground by reflex. Actually, on second thought, it didn't hurt, just like before with the fridge, 'This again?' He didn't need his brain playing tricks on him, maybe it was exhaustion along with the last couple of hours events? He needed sleep. He went to pick up his phone before he noticed the social work-."

"Are you alright?"

Ryan was startled by the question as he had actually forgotten that the social worker was still standing near him. He nodded his head, "Yeah, I'm fine." He said as he picked up his phone and frowned at what he saw, 'Great, it's busted.'

"That was pretty strange," Lisa commented, "Why would a phone short-circuit like that?"

Ryan got up from his seat and shrugged again. That seemed like its going to be his new favourite action whenever he was with this woman, "Who knows?" Because he certainly didn't, "So are we going to go to this group home or not?"

"Oh yes, sorry, this way." She said as she began to lead him down the hospital corridor.

As he left, he cast a momentarily look in the direction of the morgue where his father's body lay. He would have lingered for longer looking in that direction when his brain finally caught up with something, the social worker had seen him get shocked by his phone...so did that mean he hadn't been imagining the thing this morning with the fridge?

XxX

(A Day Later)

Everest House.

What a shite hole.

He was so out of his element here.

He was an upper middle class kid, bordering on being posh and now he was here. He didn't really know what to make of it. But what he could make out of it, he had already came to the conclusion that he was going to hate it.

It wasn't the cleanest place to be, but it could have been worse, far worse. Including him now, there were now 43 orphaned children in the home. The vast majority of them were teenagers, with a small minority still in primary or kindergarten.

It had a canteen, playroom that only consisted of a couple of pinball machines, some broken down or barely working old fashioned arcade games that looked more at home in the nineties rather than the current age. The boys and girls slept in separate wings in a bid to keep any of them from getting too frisky with each other.

That had not worked out as great as the caretakers thought it would. They still got frisky and the caretakers couldn't really careless about it. As long as birth-control was in use, they didn't really care.

This was a fine British Institution at work here. He had to wonder if all the others were like that? If so, he wept for the future.

But those sort of thoughts were for later, right now, he had to pack his stuff, whatever he wanted to bring with him to Everest House. He certainly knew for a fact that he was going to put everything valuable into storage and bring things he didn't mind suddenly _disappearing_ to the group home. It seemed like that shady of a place, and he had only spent one real night and day there.

"Shit man," Tom said as he helped him put stuff into boxes, "Your old man? I mean-Serious-Fuck."

"I know." Ryan said as he threw DVDs, games among other things into a box, "I'm still trying to wrap my head over it."

Tom stopped to look at him, "You look like you're handling yourself pretty well. Better than me. Your old man was a pretty good guy." He gave a worried look at his friend, "You should be mourning or something. It's only been a day."

"This isn't the first relative that had died on me you know? I've got experience with this sort of stuff." Ryan tried to joke but it didn't have the effect he wanted it to have.

"That's morbid. Don't do that." Tom chided him as he returned to helping his friend out, "So what about school?"

"Too far away from the group home. Transferring to the school where every boy at the home goes too."

"That sucks."

"You have no idea, it's an all-boys school."

"That sucks even more." Tom said with a sharp intake of breath, "No birds to look at for hours on day? I'd go mad." Funny thing is, he probably would, "Me and the others are going to miss you. Don't be a stranger now."

Ryan smiled as he threw the last of the cases into a box, "I don't plan to be." He looked at the box before looking at Tom, "Alright, you can have that."

Tom raised an eyebrow. Then he looked at the box, then back to Ryan and pointed at the box then himself, "I can have them?"

Ryan nodded, "Yeah, it's not like I need them. The stuff I always watch is downloaded onto my ipod, phone, you know. The marvels of the digital age."

Tom looked at the box before shrugging, "Alright, if you say so." He wasn't one to turn down such generous gifts from a friend, "And this is why I like you the most out of all our friends."

"Because I give you free stuff." Ryan said as he walked past him and began to make his way down to the first floor from the attic.

"Yeah, exactly because of that." Tom shouted after him, before noticing something, "You better not be living me alone to pack all this stuff by myself you ass!"

XxX

(Week Later)

A week later and life went on. It wasn't like life itself was going to stop and wait for him to get all his affairs into order. Life was uncaring, the world was uncaring. It was to no fault of its own, life only had one simple purpose to its entire existence, to continue onwards, heedless of the troubles happening within its boundaries.

He couldn't really blame life, it was merely carrying out its entire function in existence.

He had buried his father. He had nodded his head and smiled when people he hardly knew gave him their condolences at his loss. He had thanked them and that would be the last time he saw any of them.

He had been touched somewhat when his friends had taken the day off school to come to the funeral. They had been with him even as he watched his father's coffin be lowered into the ground beside his mother's grave.

And then, only then did he allow himself to let a tear or two to escape from his eyes. He loved that old man like a son would his father. It was then he realised he was alone...and that sucked.

At least he still had his friends.

After the funeral, he had been visited by his fathers' lawyer. He had to sign several papers to get his inheritance from his fathers' will. That had been the most boring couple of hours of his life. He never wanted to do that again.

At least he was pretty much sorted for most of his life. He was rather certain that if he budgeted himself correctly, he wouldn't have to work for his entire life. But he still was going too, his was going to make something of his life instead of relying on his inheritance.

He was positive that's what his parents would have wanted him to do. Make something of his life.

He then realised that he was now going to have to put more effort than he usually did at school.

Which was going to be rather difficult considering the school he went too. Once again, it wasn't bad, it could have been worse, it was just that it wasn't that good either. All that teenage testosterone in one single room? It was just asking for trouble.

At least the teachers were the tough-talking type of teachers. The type you had to listen too or else.

And like any news school, he made new friends. He now had his old friends, and new friends. His new friends were certainly not the type he was used too.

"A party?" Ryan asked as he walked down a footpath in the middle of a park.

"Well, it's actually more of a rave than a party." A stocky boy with short black hair that had too much gel in it, whilst wearing a Metallica t-shirt, black jeans and dark-coloured trainers said as he led the group of four towards their destination. Nathan Dyer, the apparently leader of this motley group of boys.

"It's going to be sweet," Another one of the boys said, Simon Kingsley, the shortest of the group with messy blonde hair and skin that looked like he had been out of the sun for far too long, "There's booze, girls and party poppers if you know what I mean." He said energetically with a suggestive raising of the eyebrows.

"One of these days, you're going to OD." A taller boy, taller than the rest of them said from beside Ryan with a shake of the head. Standing well over six foot and sporting a buzz-cut and green eyes, was the one they called Little Jon, Ryan didn't know why, but they just did, "Do you know what gets put in that stuff?"

Simon just merely waved off Little Jon's concerns, "Whatever big guy. We all can't get our buzz from shitty stuff like weed. The big boys need the older stuff."

"Says the 5'5 pipsqueak," Little Jon jibed with an easy grin on his face, "Big boys my ass. At the rate you're going, you're going to be dead by the time we're twenty." He finished off with a laugh, a laugh that Nathan joined in, much to Simon's anger.

"Watch your mouth you cunt, don't make beat you up."

"Yes," Little Jon drawled with a roll of the eyes, "Because it worked out so well the last time you said that."

Simon growled to himself before he just shoved his hands into his hoodies pockets, not before giving a pointed glare in Ryan's direction, "What are you laughing at you nook?"

"I'm not laughing." Ryan said as he turned his gaze in Simon's direction but keeping the path in front of him within his vision, "Hell, I didn't even laugh. I don't know what's your problem with me."

Little Jon had a smirk on his face, "I do, because you're bigger than him. He has a problem with anyone bigger than him."

At that, Ryan couldn't help but just snigger a little, something Simon spotted and wasn't at all too pleased about, "Want me kick the shit out of you?" He threatened, slightly turning his body as he walked in Ryan's direction like he was ready to pounce.

Ryan' raised his hands in a surrendering motion, "Hey, sorry, I couldn't help myself. It was funny."

Apparently the wrong thing to say as Simon's hands dropped from their pockets. He was stopped from doing anything else further by a voice of authority, well of authority to him, "Let it go Si."

Simon glared at Ryan before snorting and swinging his head back to the path in front of him, "I don't even know why we even hang around with this rag-head."

Rag-head? Well now, that just wasn't cool. Racism was not cool at all, "I take offence at that. Saying stuff like that will get you into trouble."

Simon just blew him off, "Whatever."

XxX

Ryan had to say, he was pretty impressed. He was having a rather good time at the rave. Although he did have to feel slightly slowly for the bastards that would have to eventually come here tomorrow to see that the local leisure centre was trashed and probably filled with passed out teenagers here and there.

Not long after entering the rave at what he considered an exuberant fee of £20, the group that he had come with had started to disappear. Simon had been the first to wander off somewhere in the main room where the music was the loudest and personal space was unimportant as bodies mashed together as people danced.

At then, he couldn't help himself but actually let out a full blown laugh when Little Jon commented that he hoped that the smaller boy didn't get trampled by all the giants in the room.

From then on, the three boys had stuck together for around half an hour as they scoped out the scene before each going their different ways. Feeling somewhat buzzed from the cheap Russian or Polish vodka (he didn't really care if they were cheap or not as long as they did their job) Ryan had gone to see if he could get his mack on and get lucky.

He had gotten lucky and was currently wondering whether getting his face eaten by a rather pretty brunette was actually worth it. Pulling his face away from the girl, through slightly hazy eyes, he looked at her, "Wait, wait, wait,"

The girl stopped trying to lean in her head and continue the make-out fest they were having, "What?"

Ryan looked at her, about to ask her the most important question of all, "How drunk are you?"

The girl gave him a slightly crooked smile, "Aw, you're so sweet worrying about me," She put her index finger on his lips and then proceed to run into down his body from his face to his body, "Don't worry, I'm nowhere near drunk enough."

Ryan didn't believe her, "You say that, but you're slurring your words."

"No I'm-." She tried to protest but never got to it as she quickly turned her head to the side, bended over slightly and then proceeded to empty her stomach contents to the ground.

The dark-haired teenager that she had been making out with just looked at her, "Yeah..." He slowly drawled out as the girl heaved a few times, "You're drunk." And that was a fact and thus this meant this entire endeavour was over.

Ryan began to walk away but a hand clutched onto his wrist, "What you're just going to leave? So I spewed a little, sue me."

Ryan turned his head and looked down at the light coloured contents of her stomach, "Spewed a little?" He said with a grimace, "That's not a little." He then shook his head as he tried removed the girls hand from his wrist, "Sorry, but I've got a personal rule about drunk girls. Not my thing. Way too much trouble." He frowned as she continued to hold onto his wrist, "You have one hell of a grip."

"I do gymnastics."

"Oh," Of course he couldn't have been that lucky, "Whether you're flexible or not, please let go of my hand. Seriously."

"No," The girl slurred as she stood up straight and shook her head, her dark hair swishing with each motion, "Not until you tell me why."

"I already told you why," He got a bit more forceful with the hand that was clutching his, "Now let go." He nearly shouted before a crackle of blue energy passed from his hand onto the girl.

When the energy made contact, the girl let out a cry of pain as her body spasmed. Ryan watched with wide-eyes at what he was seeing, was he doing this? If he was, how could he make it stop? At the rate he was going, the girl was going to die.

By some merciful stroke of fortune, through one of the girls spasms, Ryan was able to rip away his hands away from her hand. She just slumped to the ground onto her back-side, her arms, fingers, legs and even eyes randomly twitching every now and then.

Ryan immediately dropped next to her and went to touch her but she was able to somehow retreated away from his touch, "Don't touch me you freak!"

Ryan stopped dead cold, "What?"

"You heard me!" All signs of her previous inebriated state were gone. It seemed that the shock to her system had managed to bring back all of her mental faculties, "You're one of those _things_ aren't you? A mutant!"

Him? A mutant? There must have been a mistake, a very, very bad mistake, "No, I'm not!" He was normal. Just your average everyday middle class kid...well average, everyday orphaned middle class kid!

The girls entire body spasmed as she let out a cry of pain at the sudden unnatural movement, "Then how do you explain this!?" She said in between several spasms.

"I must have built up some static or something." That had to be it. There was no way he was a mutant. He couldn't be. Whatever his life was now, it would be gone if he was actually a mutant. Whatever normalcy he wanted would be gone.

The girl made to speak again, but in a lull between the deafening music that was coming in from inside, a background noise could be heard as loud as day. The background noise was a sound many people doing illegal acts would dread to hear, and Ryan was particularly sure that this rave was illegal.

The sound of sirens.

Police sirens.

And they were pretty damned close.

"Oh shit," Ryan said as he snapped to his feet, "Police." From the side of the building he and the girl had come to for some privacy, Ryan had a good view of the carpark and at that moment, several squad cars and police vans entered the carpark, "We should-."

"HELP!" The girl from before shouted with her loudest voice, somehow having turned her body in the direction of the carpark, "HELP!"

"-Run." Ryan finished off slowly. He looked at the girl, then at the carpark where he saw several police officers making their way towards them, dozens more making their way towards the main entrance, "Fuck it." Ryan cursed as he turned around and immediately began to sprint in the direction of the back of the leisure centre. There was no way he was going to jail.

He might just get away with a warning for trespassing, but that was still a check on his record. And he wasn't having that.

As he made his way towards the back of the leisure centre, he could hear shouting of 'Police!' From inside the centre along with the screams and shouts of probably hundreds of teenagers trying to make a run for it.

It seemed like the idea for running towards the back, then scale the wall that led into the adjacent park he had walked through earlier had been limited only to him. There were dozens of others, at least he was one of the lucky ones to be in the lead.

From behind the stampede of teenagers making a break for it were dozens of police officers, all intending to catch them. A quick glance towards the back of the pack, he could see some officers cuffing struggling teenagers who hadn't been quick enough, too drunk to run properly or had tripped in their bid for escape.

"Ryan!"

Ryan swung his head to the side and his eyes widened as he noticed a very familiar face, "Nathan!" He then blinked when he noticed the expression on his face, "You look a bit too happy for what's happening right now. Are you alright?" He wasn't high was he?

Nathan let out a loud bark of laughter, "Are you kidding? I'm having the time of my life here!" His head then turned to the side when he noticed something, "Oh boy, coppers at two!"

Quickly getting his bearings, Ryan turned his head slightly in that direction and saw more officers emerge from one of the centre's side entrants, "Oh shit." He let out as he quickly turned his head in the other direction where he guessed another side entrance might be. Lo and behold, more officers were turning up, "This isn't good."

"Damn right," Nathan said as they increased their pace, "I'm not letting them catch me. This time I'll be sent to juvie for sure."

"You have a record?" Ryan asked midstride as they neared the wall.

Nathan nodded his head, "Yep. What can I say? I was a wild kid back in the day." He could have stopped right then and there to laugh about what he said next if it wasn't for the fact that time locked away was looming over him if he stopped and got caught, "Still am in fact." He finished off with another bark of laughter.

Ryan just shook his head before throwing himself at the wall, using one leg as a spring to gain extra upwards momentum to help his downwards pushing arms with lifting his weight. At judging the right height, he swung his leg over the fence and then followed by another so that he was seating on the fence, "Thank you dad for that in-house gym." He said in silent prayer as he dropped down to the ground, landing in a crouch to minimise the damage from the fall.

"Get the fuck off!"

He turned his head in time to see Nathan land a full on stomp to the head of one of the officers, causing him to recoil away from him holding his face. Ryan winced, "I think you broke something." He pointed out as Nathan joined him on the ground and they began making a run for it again.

Nathan snorted in an uncaringly manner, "It was either him or me, I like me mo-Hurk!" He was stopped from saying anything more as he was tackled to the ground by a police officer.

"Nathan!" Ryan called out as he skidded to a halt, ready to go and help out until he realised it was every man for himself at this moment in time and he didn't really want to get anything serious like _assaulting an officer of the law_ on his record in the event that he got caught, 'Well, at least I know he won't grass on me.' He could at least count on him for that.

Ryan turned to continue running but not before he had built enough speed, he found his arm caught and pulled back that he was nearly lifted off the ground by the sudden change in direction his body went through, "What the?" He let out as he quickly managed to get his footing and turned around to see a cop pulling on him, "Oh shit!" Ryan let out as he tried to pull away, "Let go!" He barked out as he pulled at his arm, but the officer wasn't having any of it.

"Not a chance you little shit!" He said as he pulled in his dark-haired criminal, one hand snaking into his belt to unhook his cuffs, "Now why don't you come in quietly and save me the trouble of knocking your little ass into the ground?"

"N-No!" Ryan said as he strained to pull his hand away from the officer, 'At this rate I'm going to pull my arm or wrists out of their sockets!' He could already feel his shoulder and wrist aching, it was going to be one or the either, maybe even both. With one grunt of massive effort, he tried to pull away once more, "Let go!"

"Argh!"

Just like with the girl from before, again, blue-whitish energy crackled from the hand of the arm that was caught before seemingly jumping onto the hand of the officer that had his large hand around his wrist. Ryan watched with widened eyes the light-coloured electricity like energy danced and snaked around the officers' body.

"Malcom!" The officer that had been tending to Nathan cried out in a surprisingly feminine voice. She quickly went to the radio that was located on her upper left breast, "This is Officer Tuttle, we have a Code X, I repeat, we have a Code X!"

"Code X?" What the hell did that mean? All he knew that this wasn't going to end well, "Goddammit!" Ryan yelled to the sky as he turned to continue running away only to feel something catch him in the back. He stumbled forward several steps before tumbling to the ground, rolling a few times before groggily sitting up, "What the...?" He muttered as he placed his hand onto the back of his head and felt some wetness. He then noticed the police truncheon that was lying aimlessly at the side, "What the? Did you just throw that thing at me?" Wasn't that against police regulations? Wasn't that dangerous?

He didn't get an answer to his question as he received a swift kick to the head from Tuttle who had quickly gotten up and made her way towards Ryan to take advantage of the position he was in, "You're going to pay for what you did to Malcom you monster!"

XxX

(Elsewhere)

"Urgh, can't believe I've been reduced to investigating shoddy deaths." A man with dark brown coloured hair and slightly tanned looking skin, wearing a complete black suit with a loosened black tie around his neck muttered, "I came all the way up north. Christ, Yorkshire? What happens in Yorkshire anyway? Boring place to be if you ask me." He finished off as he drived down a road.

"_...I seriously hope you just didn't call me to gripe."_

"Of course not."

"_Good, so? What have you learned?"_

The man shrugged his shoulders as he continued to drive his car, "Just as much as we did yesterday when I was send here. Cause of death was exhaustion, to the extreme."

"_We know that, that's why we sent you to get more information. Stop playing around Pete."_

Pete rolled his eyes as he slowed down his car at a red a light, "Okay, okay," He relented as his car came to a complete halt, "Get this, when they said exhaustion, they weren't kidding. There's absolutely no energy whatsoever in his body. Hell, even his atoms have no charge to them. He essentially had his entire energy sucked out of his body." He shook his head in amusement as the light turned green and he began to speed up, "It's sort of like a vampire. Instead of blood, something sucked up the energy of that guys body. That's why he died. The doctors back there couldn't tell whether it was slow and painful or quick and painless." He finished off with a shrug.

"_Any suspects?"_

Pete rolled his eyes at the question, "I've been here a day Alistaire, I'm not some kind of magician. Give me some time to check things out."

"_But I get the feeling you have someone on your mind."_

Nothing can get past that man can it? He didn't even have a video call enabled and his boss had been able to figure out that he already had someone in mind that could have been the cause of the sudden death of a banker that was in the prime of his life? That was scary intuition.

"Maybe." He raised a hand and placed it on the communication device, "Well, I'm checking it out now. I'll get back to you when I have everything in order. Pete out." He finished off as he pressed a button and the link was cut. He sighed as he relaxed into his seat, "I don't get paid enough for this shit."

"_-is Officer Tuttle, we have a Code X! I repeat, we have a Code X!_"

Pete had to stifle a groan at the letter used in the code. Whoever came up with that particular code was a one kind of creative and imaginative bastard. He meant that, he really did. Giving a particular designation a letter that was well recognisable and known because of a particular person, group and gene? Absolute genius right there.

Well, at least it meant that this trip up north wasn't going to be as boring as he though it was going to be. At least now he probably had something to do that would result in him stretching his legs a bit, '...Or it could be my target?' But he couldn't be that lucky could he? Well, he wouldn't know until he found out.

XxX

(Later)

Urgh.

Everything hurt, 'Then again, I did get the shit beaten out of me.' Ryan thought wryly as he slowly rose up from his position to sit against the wall of his current abode. He winced when he felt the wall touch his sore and bruised skin.

He had already given up on getting anything for the pain. He had been lucky enough to get a cast for the arm they had broken. He was just ignored or told to shut up unless he wanted another smack, like the one he had got in the back of the van for what he had done to the two officers from before.

That had been a complete and utter accident. How was he supposed to know that he was apparently a human taser?

At that thought, he frowned. Seating alone for the past God-knows how many hours alone had gave him time to think. Think about himself and how he had ended up here.

"I'm a mutant." He murmured to himself, not that there was anyone else in his cell to tell, "Well, fuck."

It fit so well. Scarily well. So well it wasn't even funny.

It explained the fact that whole thing with his phone and the fridge a couple of days ago. Even more so when he started going around giving people electric shocks. Even when the other officers had brought out their own tasers, they had done nothing more to energise him, well he felt like he had been energised.

Well, at least last night's episode had quickly told him something, being a human taser was tiring. After accidentally shocking three people in a couple of hours, he had felt as if he had ran a marathon, even though he had never run a marathon in his entire life. He had planned too, but he doubted that was ever going to happen.

The best he would have to hope for was life in prison, probably for being a danger to others. And it wouldn't just be any kind of prison, no, it would be a prison built to handle people like him, people who had powers.

Ryan pulled up his knees to his body and gently rested his chin onto the top of his knees, "Goddamit." Life was a bitch. That's all there was too it. As if he hadn't suffered enough for this month.

His attention was then attracted to the door that led to his current abode when he heard noise from the other side. He started slowly panicking when he heard the rattle of keys before the sound of one being slinked into the keyhole, they couldn't have been serious about giving him another smack around were they? He doubted he would even survive another one.

Feeling defensive, he tried to call upon those unwanted powers of his before feeling nothing. If he could, he would have smacked himself on the head, "Oh yeah, did something." Something that made him feel slightly out of him. It was hard to collect his thoughts but whatever it was, it had been wearing off as it became easier and easier to think.

The door opened and Ryan could say he was sort of curious of instead of seeing a haggle of police officers, he instead saw a man dressed in a black suit and was strangely wearing sun-glasses inside, "Thank you for that mate," He said as he turned his head ever so slightly in the direction of the watch officer, "If you don't mind, I want to have a little chatty with our friend here."

"Sure thing Mr. Wisdom," The watch officer said as he closed the door behind them, "If you want to rough him up a bit, don't worry, we won't tell a soul."

Ryan just had to bite at that, to at least show that he wasn't as helpless as he seemed to be, "I would!"

The watch officer just barked out a laughter as the door slammed shut after him. His laugh could still be heard as he walked down the hallway into the distance.

"Hm," The sun-glassed man said as he looked in the direction of the door before slowly turning his head in Ryan's direction, "Yeah, I don't think he cares. At all."

Still wary at what the man wanted with him, Ryan only cast a glare in his direction, "Yeah I got that from the laughing and the brushing off." Snark was another means of defence, even if it brought to him even more trouble later onwards, "So what do you want?"

Pete shrugged as he leaned against a wall giving him a clear view of Ryan, "You look like shit." He said as he noted the black-eye, cast that the teenager in front of him was spotting. And was that blood on his clothes?

"The last couple of hours were shitty." Ryan returned as he returned the man's gaze, "You still didn't answer what you want. Are you a cop?"

"Something like that." Pete said in a vague manner, "I like to think of myself as something as a super-cop. Handling stuff others can't, like rampaging little mutants."

Ryan shot to his feet, "I wasn't rampaging! I was trying to get away!" Hell, he didn't even know how he had been doing the thing with the electricity he had been doing. All he knew that it came into play whenever he was feeling some kind of intense emotion or something like that, "You would too if someone looked like they were about to kill you." He had been lucky that he was rather tough and that one of the officers didn't see him like some kind of monstrosity, "And its not like I meant to hurt those two officers. It just happened." He finished off quietly as he looked down and away from the suited man.

Pete just watched Ryan from behind his sunglasses. He was actually rather genuine about the feelings he was feeling right now. He had never meant to hurt any of those two officers as much as he did. Which kind of made it hard about what he was going to do, "Firuz right?"

"Ryan."

Pete blinked, "Well, uh Ryan, I've got news for you."

"Good news or bad news?"

"I think they all count as bad news."

"Fuck." Ryan muttered before retaking his seat in his previous position. He motioned his hand, "Alright then, let's hear it."

"Okay, first off, don't freak out on me or anything, I would really hate to hurt you to calm you down." Pete began as he brought his hands out of his pockets, "You're a mutant."

Ryan just shrugged, "I already figured."

Pete blinked behind his glasses, "Well, huh, okay then." He removed his glasses from his eyes and began to wipe them, "Next is, you're a mutant that does something with energy...probably suck it up like how a vampire sucks up blood, but you do it unconsciously."

"Really?" Ryan would have been lying if he said that he hadn't felt curiosity about his powers. He had been curious, when he had first seen them, he had thought electricity or lightning because...lightning and electricity is blue-whitish and it crackles around doesn't it? Well, that had been his logic and he was sticking with it.

Pete nodded as he fixed his glasses back onto his face, "Problem is, like I said you suck up energy unconsciously. You can't control it. In fact, I would bet you that right now, you're sucking the ambient energy in this room." He finished off with a grand motion of his hands of the entire span of the cell.

"Oh," Ryan dumbly let out, "Nifty."

"No, not nifty," Pete said, "Like I said, you're sucking up all the energy in the room. Including energy like bioelectricity...the type human's produce." Honestly, even though he never felt it, he could honestly say that he could feel something happening right now that was also absorbing the latent heat and solar radiation.

Ryan's eyes widened slightly, "Oh, that can't be good."

"No it's not good."

"Then why are you in the room? You might die." Ryan said with some alarm. He really didn't want to have the death of some guy on his shoulders even more so now with the amount of trouble he was in.

"So nice to know you care, but I'm rather special." Pete said with a slight smirk on his lips, "Would take more than a pubescent teen to take me out."

"Ah yeah, sure," Ryan said unsurely, "So is that all? Did you just come here to tell me that?"

Pete's demeanour changed at that as he took on a more serious look, "No. I don't really kow how to say this kid," He really didn't. The kid in front of him was an honest to God good kid, he wasn't bad, he didn't mean to go out and cause the damage he had done, "Kid, Officer Malcom O'Donnell, the first cop you tasered? His heart gave out sometime last night."

Ryan's stomach dropped at that news, "Oh God..."

Pete nodded in a rather grim manner, "He had an undiagnosed heart condition. Your little shock to his system was enough for that condition to kill him. It was purely accidental."

Ryan let a scoff escape his lips, "Is that supposed to make me feel better? If I hadn't shocked him, he would still be alive." He hugged his legs even closer to his chest than they were already, "I might as well have killed the guy. No, I _did _kill the guy."

"Then by that logic you also killed your dad."

Ryan's head snapped up to face Pete, his skin pale at that had just been said, "What?"

"You heard me."

"...My dad? That's a joke." A very sick joke, "Don't say stuff like that."

Pete shook his head, "I wish I was joking, but I'm not."

Ryan's one good arm slowly rose up to the side of his head as he lowered it into his knees, "Oh Christ...dad..." He mumbled, tears pricking at his eyes. He had killed his own dad. Patricide. That sort of thing didn't happen in real life, "...I'm going to hell." He wasn't religious or anything, but that statement seemed appropriate at this moment in time. But he wasn't going to cry, not in front of this person.

"The night that your dad died," Pete began to say after a while, "There was a series of power fluctuations in your neighbourhood grid system. I'm not an expert, but I think that was the night your powers or X-gene as it colloquially known activated. Your dad was unlucky enough to be so close to the eye of the storm," But unlike other eyes of the storm, this hadn't been safe in the slightest, not a chance, in fact it was rather the opposite, "That his body's own bioenergy was sucked out of him. Sorry kid."

Ryan didn't bother to look up, "So what now? Death penalty?" He had the blood of two people on his hands, his father's and the blood of a man who had simply been doing his job, a job that was respected in society.

"We abolished that in the 60's kid."

"So isolation?"

"What brought that on?"

"I suck energy, including bioenergy apparently, you said so yourself." Ryan said with a shrug as he finally looked up, "I'm a danger to everyone." He was lucky that he hadn't sucked the life out of other people who had been in proximity of him. He wondered why that was, maybe he absorbed energy at a really slow rate? Enough to allow him to be around other people. That could explain it.

Pete brought out a hand and began to rub his chin in thought, "Maybe," He said, still rubbing his chin as a grin formed on his mouth, "Or,"

"Or..."

"I can send you to this special place where you can learn how to control your powers."

"...Learn to control-." Ryan stopped himself as he thought about it. There was no way, it couldn't have been that place. Just no.

"Seems like you figured it out."

"I'm pretty sure that it's been closed."

"That was nothing more than a gross misunderstanding."

Ryan didn't believe that for a second, "Yeah, sure but why?"

"Frankly kid?" Pete asked rhetorically, "It's because you're a potential asset. Gone are the days WMDs and the likes. People like you and me are the future for countries. There's a weapons race going on kid, and we're the weapons."

The dark haired super-powered teen raised an eyebrow at what Pete had just said, "You and me?" He repeated slowly trying to figure it out before it clicked. His eyes widened slowly, "You're a-?"

The secret agent merely nodded his head as he lifted up a hand. Nothing spectacular about that until the fingers started glowing a burning orange colour and extended into what looked like claws, "Yeah, I do a little something, something with heat. I like to call them Hot Knives. Hurt like hell though when you're on the end of them."

Ryan had to admit, that was pretty cool. His inner boy was completely and utterly ogling the sight in front of him right now, "Yeah, that's awesome and all, but I've got a couple of questions about this entire thing."

Pete deactivated his powers and placed his hand back into his pocket, "Shoot."

"First off," Ryan began as he thought about how to word it before just deciding to be blunt about it, "I killed two people," Not including his father and a police officer, "How do you just brush that under the carpet and allow me to go off?"

Pete just pointed at himself with a dry look on his face, well Ryan thought it was a dry look. If he removed those stupid sunglasses he wore, he might have been able to tell, "I work for a super-secret government agency in service of Her Majesty. A couple of deaths here and there are rather easy to just make sure that they disappeared."

Ryan recoiled at that, "Isn't that abuse of power?" There clearly had to be rules about that weren't there? You just couldn't use power like that, especially to deny people justice. Like the family of the officer he had been inadvertent killer of.

"Or pro-active use of power." Pete returned, "My motto is, if you have it, use it. Granted I just came up with it right now for this situation. So anyway, what's your next question?" He asked with a smile on his face as he brought his hands together with a clap.

Now it was Ryan turn to give him a dry look, "...Why let other people teach me about my powers rather than do it yourself?"

Pete shrugged, "Budget issues. The economy is rather bad now if you haven't noticed. If someone else is offering to do it for free, why not let them do it? Saves us the money we could have used on training your ass on something more important...like stopping some nutter from trying to murder the Royal family, little things like that." He smiled confidently at Ryan, "Plus anyway, those guys happen to have a good track record at making some pretty strong guys."

"You make it sound as if I go there and come back, I'll immediately come to work for you or whoever you work for."

"Because you will. Let's face it kid, what have you honestly got going for you right now? I would really love to know."

Ryan frowned at the question, "Nothing. I've got jack all going for me now."

"Rather blunt, but yes, you have nothing going for you." Pete said with a nod of the head in agreement, "So what's it going to be?"

Ryan sat quietly as he thought about it. He really did. He sat there mulling the idea to and fro inside the depths of his mind. After so many minutes, he finally came to a decision.

"No."

"No?"

Ryan nodded his head, "No." He sighed as he slowly got up to his feet, cursing himself for not being careful earlier. He could feel the pain his bruises were giving him, "I killed two people, by accident? Yes. But I'm going to have to pay for that, I just can't bail on that."

"That's pretty ballsy kid," Pete admitted, "Most would have taken the offer right off the bat."

Ryan let out a wry laugh, "Well, I've always tried not to be most people."

"But you're still going to have to go."

"I said no didn't I?"

"Do you remember the part where I said you killed your dad by sucking the life out of him? Yeah, I'm sure you do. That might happen again."

"You're still alive aren't you?"

Pete nodded his head, "That I am, but what if one day you just suddenly absorb some massive energy levels? We can't be having that."

The dark-haired teenager frowned at that thought, "I'm sure you can make something for that. You're the government."

"Once again, economy is rather bad nowadays."

"You can't keep hiding behind that."

"I will and will continue to do so until you say yes."

"You're really annoying."

The older of the two males then took on a more serious look on his face, which was once again, hard to tell by the glasses covering his eyes, "If you want to atone for the deaths you caused, then do this. Go there, learn how to control your powers so something like this doesn't happen again, come back and then use those very same powers to serve Queen and country. Trust me when I say this, there's always a bad guy that's milling about with intention to cause hundreds of deaths, maybe even more for whatever reason and you never know, that power of yours might be just enough to save hundreds of lives, maybe even thousands."

Ryan looked at him as he thought about what he had just been told. He eventually sighed, "You suck at speeches."

"...That's all you got out of that?" Pete asked before shaking his head, "And anyway, it's either that option or I make sure you aren't a future problem. The sort of problem that would one day kill people just by accident because you didn't want to learn how to control your powers."

There was just something about the way he said 'take care off' that Ryan had to be particularly sure about, "Now when you say take care off..." He trailed off, knowing that the man in front of him would pick up on the line of the sentence he had just uttered.

And he wasn't disappointed as Pete nodded his head, "Yeah, like a Hot Knife to the head sort of take care off."

Ryan took in some air in a sharp manner, "I thought as much." He mumbled underneath his breath, "So it's either go or die."

"Pretty much."

"...I want to say die,"

"But?"

"My self-preservation instinct." The teenager said rather uneased by that admission. Man he was a cowered or a hypocrite, maybe both. Willing to spend the rest of his life in prison but not willing to just die so that won't be a problem for others in the future?

Pete laughed, "That's not a bad thing kid. Every normal person likes living, and anyway, that instinct is there for a reason. To tell us to stop doing stupid things that are going to get us killed."

Ryan just gave him a look, "Won't I be doing stupid stuff in the future that are going to get me killed if I go along with this?"

Pete shrugged in a nonchalant manner, "Meh, po-ta-to, po-ta-toe," He answered...although it wasn't much of an answer to begin with as he began to make his way towards the door, "Alright, pack up your stuff, you're coming with me." He stopped and turned his head to look around and only noted that the room only consisted of a bed, toilet and that was it, "Huh, this must be rather different from your suburban middle class life." He muttered before continuing as he walked out of the cell.

Ryan just stared at the open door, "I really don't like that guy."

* * *

><p><strong>AN: So, what do you guys think? Reviews are welcome. I'm like an anchovy swimming out into the Pacific here, so out of my zone of comfort. It's not a Naruto story or a Naruto x-over with another universe story. Most of the story lines are going to be original in thought and making apart from some major story lines that take part in the Marvel Universe.<strong>

**I honestly had a hard time choosing how to start my guy off. I had several templates, each with a different origin of how he would find himself in a world that he really didn't want to belong in, the whole nine yards. So I did a raffle to choose and this one won. So ladies ad gents, meet Firuz 'Ryan' Sterling and about the name thing? Yeah, I go by my middle name, I dislike my first name (mostly because people have a hard time pronouncing it) so I just go by my more English middle name...which I'm not going to tell you, but I thought it would be nice to have some sort of connection with the character, makes me work extra harder to make sure the story is enjoyable for my loveable readers.**

**With this, it means one of the two Marvel stories I have has made its debut. The other is set in the Ultimate Universe and I already have the character for that, once again, using a raffle from my remaining other templates. Going to try and see if I could get one of my friends who knows how to draw much better than me to draw me a picture of my character for all of you to see.**

**Well, I hope you enjoy and leave a review, tell me what you liked, tell me what you didn't like, constructive criticism, always good to have. Improves my ability as a writer and thus improves my ability to entertain you guys with my stories. And I'm such a magnanimous guy that I keep on giving and giving and giving and giving and giving...because I like giving.**

**So, yeah, reviews. **

**That's all folks, Raiden.**


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